For the second straight summer, Shazam has released a top 10 list anticipating the summer's big hits.
More than 300 million people worldwide use Shazam to identify, or "tag," songs playing around them in bars, in stores and on the radio. The mobile app determines its top 10 based mainly on the number of tags the songs have tallied in recent months.
For example, "Get Lucky" has received 4 million tags and shot to No. 1 on Shazam charts in 91 countries.
Last year, Shazam correctly predicted Gotye's "Somebody I Used to Know" as the No. 1 song of the summer. It wasn't that big of a stretch — "Somebody" had already spent 19 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and five weeks at the No. 1 spot — but Shazam got serious props for it.
Will Shazam's predictions prove to be even more on the number this summer? It has tallied more than a billion tags since the beginning of the year, an increase of more than 80 percent compared with this time a year ago. Since last year's list was released, three out of every four top songs in the Shazam U.S. New Release Charts have gone on to reach Billboard's top 10.
KDWB DJ Lucas Phelan thinks Shazam's picks reflect overall sales, but he's not so sure about its ability to forecast hits, particularly regionally.
"I think Shazam is more for music heads, for people seeking out that tip-of-the-sword situation for the newest, coolest thing," he said.
